A Head in the Cloud?

The world of IT has come a long way since the birth of modern computer technology in the 1940s.

Who would have thought in 2006, for example, when Amazon launched its Elastic Compute Cloud, that within ten years, Cloud Computing would have become such a powerful force in the IT industry? So much so, that we are now seeing non-Cloud system upgrades referred to as “traditional,” which for such a young industry, is an extraordinary concept in itself.

The alignment of business and IT strategies, and the consequent enhancement of IT capabilities must be driven by business, rather than technological imperatives. In other words, the solution you chose should be the one that’s right for your unique circumstance, whatever platform that may entail. Many organisations today are expressing a desire to move at least part of their IT capability to the Cloud, and it’s with this in mind that we have authored a new White Paper; Migrating to the Cloud, The Transition to Cloud-based Business Applications.

In it, we take a look at the factors involved in the decision to move to a commercial off the shelf (COTS) platform and cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, and changes such a move will bring to business users. We also examine the different commercial considerations that beed to be taken into account when selecting a cloud-based solution as opposed to a more traditional solution, and look at ways in which the process can be smoothed and safeguarded.

Much of this revolves around the paradigm shift of moving from internal to external responsibility for application support and management of infrastructure. The nature of SaaS means that vendors automatically have more responsibility, accountability and control in the application management process, as well as the management of technical support services. When you select your product vendor, you also select the organisation that will provide a significant part of your ongoing service management capability. It’s important, therefore, to ensure your vendor has both the capabilities to implement and manage your chosen solution. Clear lines of responsibility need to be drawn. And attention needs to be given to issues of redress, recovery and, in the last resort, exit.

Use the link below to download your copy

Migrating business applications to the cloud – white paper